Susan Glover Insight & Advice

The Issue Isn’t the CRM, It’s You

A high CRM adoption rate is dependent on your staff’s willingness to embrace it. Without it, you end up with several CRMs - otherwise known as spreadsheets

Throughout my career, I’ve had managers tell me how to do a task (incorrectly), why I should support their views (though I had my own views), and why agreeing with their decision is good for the firm (with a pat on my back and a smile on their faces.) If these one-sided statements sound like your CRM buy-in strategy, then your firm’s low adoption rate shouldn’t be a surprise.

Many CRM conversations with advisors center around workflow bottlenecks, out-of-date data fields, and staff that won’t use it. Advisors believe that a new CRM will do the trick. It won’t, unless you start at the beginning – your people.

Read our Barron's article on how to achieve a high CRM adoption rate by taking a people first approach:

People are comfortable with a CRM that is intuitive to them

The limitations of your CRM combined with your staff’s desire to get things done correctly & quickly results in staff embracing spreadsheets over the CRM